As 2012 comes to a close, everyone at Med-ERRS would like to thank our clients for their business this year and wish everyone a peaceful and safe holiday season.

We look forward to a busy start to 2013 and another year of being "your trusted partner in medication safety."

Regards,
Susan

Med-ERRS News

As we have mentioned previously, Med-ERRS often partners with Human Factors Engineering firms to provide risk assessments and feedback from the safety standpoint on user testing regarding drugs or drug-device combinations. A firm that we have partnered with has announced that they have been acquired by Underwriters Laboratories (UL). More information can be found here.Med-ERRS is recruiting a part-time Market Development Representative. This individual will work with a group of medication safety healthcare professionals to present Med-ERRS line of safety-related services to companies in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. This position will be responsible for marketing and selling Med-ERRS current and future safety services. In addition, the candidate will be involved in market planning and product development for Med-ERRS. Healthcare background (e.g., pharmacist, nurse) and/or pharmaceutical industry experience required. Interested parties should send resume and salary requirements to info@med-errs.com.

When you search for a drug in your computer system, unexpected results may be displayed despite typing the name correctly. A nurse who was discharging a patient from the hospital was reviewing the patient’s medications, which included tranexamic acid (CYKLOKAPRON) 500 mg, a drug for certain bleeding disorders that the patient did not have. The patient said he was taking RANEXA (ranolazine) 500 mg for angina. The hospital’s computer system, PowerChart by Cerner, listed tranexamic acid when searching for “Ranexa.” The name Ranexa is completely and correctly spelled within the word tranexamic acid. Both options were listed when Ranexa was typed, and the wrong name was chosen when preparing the list of discharge medications. Some electronic drug information resources will do the same. For example, Clinical Pharmacology lists both monographs when searching “Ranexa,” and the government databases, Drugs@FDA on the FDA.gov website and Dailymed on the NIH/National Library of Medicine website, list both of the above drugs. It may not be clear to some that these medications aren’t the same, especially if staff don’t know that different medications often appear during a computer search. Some references work by searching for the exact letter string entered in the search, even when not included in the first few characters of the name (called a “contained within” search). Others, like LexiComp Online and Facts and Comparisons, work with beginning letter characters in the drug name (called a “begins with” search).
Although this particular error occurred between and brand name and a generic name, we have seen similar errors occur between two brand names. Med-ERRS Screen-ERR and ERRS Model reports often cite the potential for errors with one drug name “contained within” a proposed trademark.

Med-ERRS Services

Trademark Evaluation: Med-ERRS has developed a service for evaluating the safety of trademarks called the ERRS MODEL®, which incorporates various techniques recommended by the FDA to evaluate the safety of trademarks.

SCREEN-ERR: Helps companies evaluate multiple pharmaceutical trademark candidates at an early stage in the trademark development process.

Package and Label Evaluation: Helps clients create packaging and labels that are easy to understand and consistent with the most current FDA and world wide regulatory authorities.

Safety Consulting: Provides consultative services which are related to a variety of medication safety-related issues.